


when the cherry blossoms fall

by akanemnida



Category: NU'EST
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 14:44:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akanemnida/pseuds/akanemnida
Summary: The four ways Kang Dongho confesses -- or doesn't confess -- during spring.





	when the cherry blossoms fall

**Author's Note:**

> To the prompter: this prompt was something that is so close to my heart so I really wanted to write it, but somewhere along the line I found it so difficult and so out of my style. I hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

 

01.

They’re young and stupid and on one of their rare days off work when Dongho first makes an attempt to confess. They’re sitting on a park bench under a cherry blossom tree, while a bright-eyed, pink-cheeked, giggly Minhyun had laid his head on his shoulder.

“Baekho-ya,” Minhyun had said hours ago, “Let’s go out and experience _hanami_.”

Dongho had agreed quickly. His basic knowledge of Japanese allowed him to at least figure out that _hanami_ meant viewing flowers, and he really had no reason to say no to something so innocuous. Japanese _sakura_ were legendary, of _course_ he’d like to view them with a friend.

What he didn’t expect was getting dragged by Minhyun to a convenience store, for the sole reason of stocking up on grapefruit-flavored _shochu_.

“I thought we were going to look at flowers?” Dongho said, scrunching his nose in disgust once he looked at Minhyun’s convenience store haul. He didn’t really like alcohol, never enjoyed the taste and the extra calories that came with something that tasted so awful. He also hated the resulting lack of self-control after a few sips and never really understood why anyone would drink something so _evil_. As far as he knew Minhyun also hated drinking, but then again the other boy had a penchant for all things grapefruit-flavored.

“No, I said we’ll do _hanami_! People in Japan just use viewing the _sakura_ as an excuse to drink. _Hanami_ is actually Japanese for ‘let’s get wasted under the cherry blossom trees at midday.’” Minhyun shoves a can into his hands. It’s lemon-lime flavored, like his favorite cider. Somehow Minhyun manages to be a little considerate even while dragging him to drink.

“I’ll have only one can, Minhyun-ah. And if I hate it I won’t finish.”

Minhyun beams at him. “Sure, no problem!”

 

 

Minhyun had been on a roll lately, asking him to do the most stereotypical Japanese things for no real reason. “Let’s ride the _shinkansen_!” and “Baekho-ya, can we please look at Hachiko’s statue, _please_ ”, and his most favorite of Minhyun’s latest requests, “Kang Dongho, let’s go on a date, let’s eat at a conveyer sushi restaurant!”

(He’s still not sure if he most liked the first half or the last half of that request.)

It’s after Minhyun finishes two cans of his drink and Dongho takes two sips of his lemon-lime _shochu_ when he asks, “Minhyun-ah, why have you been really into doing Japanese clichés lately?”

Minhyun giggles. Minhyun is always giggling with that annoying, low-pitched laugh of his, but somehow under the influence of alcohol the laughs are more frequent. It’s contagious. Dongho smiles.

“You know, we’re in Japan for only a short while—” he hiccups, and then opens his third can. “At least, I hope it’s a short while… I just want to try everything, you know?”

 “Like getting wasted under a cherry blossom tree?” Dongho watches as a stray petal makes its way down onto Minhyun’s fringe, and then down to Minhyun’s cheek.

Minhyun’s cheeks seem much pinker than the petal. A stray thought—that Minhyun is prettier than the flowers—crosses his mind. Dongho reaches out to brush the petal and the offending thoughts away.

“Like hanging out with my very best friend under a _sakura_ tree,” Minhyun corrects, attempting to inject sternness into his voice but having the words come out more slurred than usual. Dongho suppresses a laugh. Minhyun and grapefruit _anything_ was really a formidable combination.

“Sure, Minhyun-ah.” He takes another sip. It tastes nice, sweet, almost like cider, but Minhyun chooses that moment to lean his head on his shoulder. He supposes someone needed to take care of Minhyun this afternoon. He stops drinking. “Whatever makes you happy.”

“You know, Baekho-ya, _sakura_ stands for the fleeting nature of life, how everything is temporary—”

“You’re drunk, you’re really going poetic mode on me—”

“—but I _reaaallly_ won’t forget this afternoon with you.”

Dongho snorts, but a blush creeps up on his cheeks anyway. He pinches Minhyun’s nose. “You _will_. You’re drunk.”

Minhyun nuzzles his cheek further on Dongho’s neck, and then closes his eyes. “Probably. Hey, hey, tell me something I won’t forget when I wake up.”

“Are you seriously _sleeping—”_

Minhyun hums softly, and then silence. Dongho looks down at the boy beside him; pale cheeks, full lips, eyelashes so close he could probably count them all. Hwang Minhyun is just _so_ pretty, it was a fact that kind of irritated him while simultaneously making his insides churn.

“Something you won’t forget, huh…?” Dongho mutters to no one in particular. The park is noisy, with people seemingly everywhere engaging in _hanami_ festivities with their big groups of friends. It’s loud, but he feels as if the world consisted of only him and Minhyun and the park bench and the _sakura_ tree. He mouths the words “I think I like you”, tests them on his lips, but he doesn’t find the voice to say them out loud.  

He takes one more sip of his lemon-lime _shochu_. Courage never comes to him. The flowers continue to fall.

 

 

 

02.

Next to driving his car, cycling around town is Dongho’s favorite mode of transportation. To him, there’s something so uniquely satisfying with having the winds blow right at your face while having the scenery zoom by. When they were in Japan, taking trains and buses was the most sensible option, but their landlord had offered them a pair of _mamachari_ that they could use for free, and Dongho had instantly staked his claim over one, with Minhyun immediately marking the other as his.

The bikes were simple, nothing special compared to the ones they kept in Seoul. But he was grateful for them nonetheless, thankful for the way his bicycle was able to make him feel freedom even when swamped with work, practices, and a pesky language barrier he never really tried to get over while living in Japan.

But if there’s one thing he missed, it was racing, zipping along the Han river with Minhyun by his side. The cold wind rushing past his face, blood pumping through his veins mixed with a need to _win_. He missed it so much, and though the _mamachari_ racing experience may not be the same with his road bike in Seoul _,_ well, his competitive side burns all the same.

“Minhyun-ah,” Dongho says out of boredom one day. “Let’s race.”

“With what? We left our road bikes in Seoul—”

“The bikes the landlord lent us. I’m _bored_ Minhyun-ah, let’s do it.”

There’s confusion in Minhyun’s eyes at first, which quickly paves way to a mischievous glint. “What does the winner get?”

Dongho shrugs. “Free food?”

“No, that’s not fun, how about… how about the loser has to do anything the winner says for an entire day—”

“That’s too much!” (He refuses to acknowledge that he does most of whatever Minhyun says anyway.)

Minhyun laughs. “Are you scared you’re going to lose? I always beat you when we were in Seoul…”

“That’s cause your bike is better than mine,” Dongho retorts, sticking his tongue out petulantly. “How about… for two hours?”

Minhyun responds with a smirk. “Then get ready to be my slave for two hours, Kang Dongho.”

 

 

They pick a spot in a nearby park, a long stretch of paved road with _sakura_ trees lining the bike lane. It’s spring, his most favorite cycling season of all, with its mild temperatures and the beautiful atmosphere that the _sakura_ seemed to bring. Racing _mamachari_ wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience. Because there weren’t a lot of gears in this bike the only real tactic he could use was to pedal more, to try and just brute force his way to being _faster_ but Minhyun’s long legs were too damn efficient at pedaling. He really didn’t want to lose, not now, not to Hwang Minhyun of all people…

But all of a sudden Minhyun is in front of him, moving forward, _forward_ , and then in the blink of an eye, Minhyun seemed to be entirely too far ahead.

Back when they were in Seoul it had always been a neck-to-neck race, as they cycled beside each other most of the time until someone would pull ahead for the final stretch, only to have both of them collapse into a heap beside each other on a random patch of grass. But today… today was strange.

Somehow Minhyun managed to get so far away.

Did he accidentally backpedal and slow down? Did Minhyun just have some sort of superhuman pedaling ability?

When did Minhyun’s shoulders get so broad?

 

 “Yah, Hwang Minhyun, slow down!” Dongho yells. Minhyun is far, but still within earshot. “It’s not fun when we’re not beside each other!”

He looks over his shoulder to meet Dongho’s eyes. A smile breaks out on Minhyun’s face, before he turns to look at the road again.

“It’s not that fun, but we’ll deal with it,” Minhyun says in a sing-song voice.

Dongho lets one hand let go of his handlebar. He reaches out. There’s a nagging feeling in his chest, and he’s not quite sure if it is his competitive nature or if it is something else entirely, a feeling he didn’t really want to explore further for now.

Still, the scenery of Minhyun’s broad shoulders hunched over his bicycle, moving farther and farther away while the _sakura_ falls in the background embeds itself in his mind.

He pedals harder, trying his best to catch up.

 

 

“Baekho-ya.”

“What?”

“Tell me you like me.”

“What kind of a shit-ass request is that?”

“I don’t know, it seemed like something I wanted to hear with all the cherry blossoms falling all over the place. I see it all the time in dramas and I kind of want to feel that way?”

“What the fuck? No!”

“I still have my two hours. You know you have to do it.”

Dongho lets his irritation mask the sincerity of his words. “Hwang Minhyun, I like you.” He shakes his head, surprised at how easily it all comes out. Perhaps these were words that were easier when using a sarcastic voice, but maybe they just flowed naturally because they've been trying to come out for years now. “Are you good now?”

 

The way Minhyun turns red, so _pink_ , much pinker than the _sakura_ trees…

 

Dongho says “I like you” again, this time without the mocking tone. Minhyun, still blushing, tells Dongho to stop.

 

 

 

 

03.

He'd thought himself as fairly athletic, but the twelve thousand steps to travel through Fushimi Inari’s _torii_ gates all the way up to the summit, had been entirely too much, even with Minhyun's fingers intertwined with his own.

 

(But then again, maybe it was the latter fact that was making his heart race, but if he could attribute it to exhaustion, then why the hell not?)

 

He really didn't know how Minhyun's hand got there there in the first place. One second he was just chattering while climbing with Minhyun at his side; the next second there was a hand wrapped around his. Spring wasn't _cold_ per se, so he didn’t think it had anything to do with warmth, and Minhyun didn’t ask for help or support while climbing or anything, so it wasn’t that either, so…

 

What exactly did Minhyun want?

 

Being Minhyun’s friend had been too confusing lately. There had been times when Minhyun’s gaze would linger for far too long, occasional touches that were surely less than platonic in intent. But he wasn’t keen on overthinking it, because he might be _wrong_ , and so the only solution would be to ask directly, but then that might ruin everything, and everything was already so _good_ …

 

Because even if he didn’t know what Minhyun wanted, he knew what _he_ wanted, he’s known it for the longest time but the courage to do anything about it was something he hadn’t yet been able to find. But then once in a while, Minhyun goes and does things that give him courage, small actions that were entirely too easy to take out of context. Like today, with Minhyun holding his hand for no real reason, his thumb stroking soft circles at the back of his hand.

 

Why does he _always_ get the urge to confess at least once during spring?

 

He lets go of Minhyun’s hand and ignores the small, questioning sound from the boy beside him. A soft wind causes the cherry blossom petals around them to fall in a pink shower that contrasted the bright red _torii_ gates. A light pink _sakura_ petal gets stuck in Minhyun’s hair, and Dongho reaches out to remove it. Minhyun tilts his head in confusion, and his simple action makes Dongho’s insides squirm. It ticks him off slightly: how can his best friend be more beautiful than both nature and architecture all at once?

Miffed, he marches over to the souvenir shop to look around and to distance himself from Minhyun for a bit. Sometimes being around Minhyun made it a bit difficult to breathe.

 

He returns to Minhyun moments later, with an _omamori_ that he shoves in Minhyun’s hands.

“Ah, which one is this?” Minhyun waggles his eyebrows. “I hope it’s the one for more money—”

“Victory,” Dongho grumbles, steering Minhyun away from the store, away from the _omamori_ guide that would help Minhyun figure out which one he bought. “General good luck. Now stop asking.”

 

Several minutes later, they stumble upon another _omamori_ store. It only takes Minhyun a single glance to realize that Dongho bought him a good luck charm for love.

Minhyun tries not to smile. He doesn’t bring it up.

 

 

 

04.

“Baekho-ya,” Minhyun says softly, burying his face in Dongho’s chest. It’s one of those traitorously cold spring mornings that jolt Minhyun awake too damn early. “What if no one votes for me?”

“Sleep,” Dongho mumbles in response while letting his hand run lazily through Minhyun’s hair. “Too early.”

There’s an anxiety that won’t stop thrumming through his veins, what with the first episode of _Produce 101_ airing the night before. What if no one likes him? What if no one votes for him? Spring to him had always pleasant, a season that reminded him of fresh blooms and new beginnings, but it seems like this year’s spring would be filled with stress and late-night filmings and a constant fear that there would be absolutely nothing moving forward…

Minhyun tries to close his eyes, but sleep never comes to him. “Yah, Baekho-ya, do you think anyone will love me enough to vote for me?”

He’s met with a few minutes of silence. He’s almost tricked himself to be calm enough to return to sleep when—

“I’ll make sure you have one vote.” Dongho says tiredly, then holds Minhyun closer. “Stop worrying about it.”

 

Minhyun’s heart skips a beat. There’s an “I love you, too” lingering on his lips that he chooses not to say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the Snow Fox team! Minhyun is love, Minhyun is life!
> 
> Comments and kudos keep me motivated. If you want to reach me, find me on twitter (@akanemnida).


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